Weakness is Strength
For All Nails #159: Weakness is Strength by Bernard Guerrero ---- :From the Statist :12 January 1976 Rodney Sees Red When is weakness strength? When your company's strength relies on the weakness of Mexican copyright protection. Newburgh Entertainments (the Juggernaut on the Hudson) is fuming, but there isn't much it can do. The cause of its consternation sits safely across the border. Chief Export Officer Steven Wiley recalls when he first became aware of the issue. He had just left a business meeting at Mexico City's "cursy" Franklin Inn when, stepping out onto United States Boulevard, he spotted a shocking advertisement plastered on a passing mass transit locomobile. The cover of Tania Monroy's latest album? Worse than that: It was an advertisement for a new collection of cartoons featuring Newburgh's flagship character, Rodney the Rhode Island Red Rooster. To add insult to injury, it wasn't even for the collection Wiley had just been negotiating over in the Franklin, but rather for an entirely bogus collection apparently prepared locally in Mexico without Newburgh's approval or input. Wiley, recovering quickly, sent two assistants to canvas the Alameda shopping district. What they found has the Rooster seeing red. Not only was the bogus collection widely available for sale in regular bookshops, but the thieves (one Comedies Mejicanas de Quality) had in turn been stolen from by local "pirata printers" who were churning out illegal copies of the illegal copies. Further searching nearly sent Mr. Wiley into apoplexy, as investigators found entire pirated or bogus animated vita-shows. And content has not always reflected Newburgh's wholesome family image. "Some of what we found being distributed in our name I wouldn't have played in a New Orleans bordello!" says Wiley. "Blue content, and often so poorly written and produced that the technique was as embarrassing to us as the subject matter. And they'd spliced in leaders and previews from stuff we'd never be associated with, Monroy, Christiano, Muerte Negra. Anybody who played this fast and loose with our stock in trade in the Confederation would have been facing a lawsuit within hours." As it stands, Comedies Mejicanas de Quality was facing lawsuits within weeks. But Newburgh's vaunted legal prowess in defending its creations has fallen flat in the USM. Copyright protections are weak even for domestic artists, who tend to capitalize on notoriety in ways other than direct sales at home. Witness, for instance, the marketing of Tania Monroy in areas far removed from music. For a CNA-based firm the legal maze has proven to be difficult to penetrate. And even if CMQ is enjoined from producing further bogus materials (the company argues that they are producing new and novel content and that Newburgh's copyright does not apply), nothing will stop the "piratas." Legal bills are mounting and Wiley and Newburgh have yet to see any definitive impact on the circulation of pirated materials, so the firm's Mexican operation is seeing red in more ways than one. Newburgh also fears contamination of its pearly white image by low quality and bawdy knockoffs, and even faithful piratings might lower the value of its holdings if they manage to leak back over the border. The impact of the fracas over Rodney the Rooster extends beyond one firm, however. CNA negotiators are expected to use the incident (and countless others like it) as a bludgeon at the trade liberalization talks. The CNA increasingly depends on the production of high value-added merchandise like 'loke designs, biological research and Rodney, and liberalization without solid protection for such properties in the USM is likely a non-starter. There is some irony in the Mexican position, as Mexico uses exports of this nature as a huge foreign-exchange source itself. It relies on solid protections elsewhere in the world to assure the earning potential of Monroy and her ilk even as it allows widespread piracy right under its nose, cuckoo-like. This makes any serious defense of the weakness of such protection in Mexico proper untenable in the long run. Some analysts of political economy therefore expect a favorable response from USM negotiators ... for a price. ---- Forward to FAN #160: Hope You Guessed My Name. Forward to 22 January 1976: The Tailor of Panama. Forward to the Statist: Wheeler Wars. Return to For All Nails. Category:Statist